Rose MacLeod. Alice Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ she said, "wouldn't it be one of the inconceivable things if we who have followed his work and studied him at a distance knew him better than you who have had the privilege of knowing him at first hand?"

      In spite of herself, Rose answered dryly,—

      "It would be strange."

      But Electra had not heard. There was the sound of wheels on the drive, and she looked out, to see Madam Fulton alighting.

      "Excuse me, one moment," she said. "My grandmother has come home from town."

      When Rose was alone in the room, she put her hand to her throat to soothe its aching. There were tears in her eyes. She seemed to have attempted an impossible task. But presently Electra was entering again, half supporting by the arm a fragile-looking old lady who walked inflexibly, as if she resented that aid. Madam Fulton was always scrupulous in the appointments of her person; but this morning, with the slightly fagged look about her eyes and her careful bonnet a trifle awry, she disclosed the fact that she had dressed in haste for a train. But she seemed very much alive, with the alert responsiveness of those to whom interesting things have happened.

      "I want my grandmother to be as surprised as I am," Electra was saying, with her air of social ease. "Grandmother, who do you think this is? The daughter of Markham MacLeod!" She announced it as if it were great news from a quarter unexplored and wonderful. Rose was on her feet, her pathetic eyes fixed upon the old lady's face. Madam Fulton was regarding her with a frank interest it consoled her to see. It was not, at least, so disproportioned.

      "Dear me!" said the old lady. "Well, your father is a remarkable man. Electra here has all his theories by heart."

      "I wish I had," breathed Electra with a fervency calculated perhaps to distract the talk from other issues.

      "How long have you been in America?" asked the old lady civilly, though not sitting down. She had to realize that she was tired, that it would be the part of prudence to escape to her own room.

      "I have just come," said Rose, in a low, eloquent voice, its tones vibrating with her sense of the unfriendliness that had awaited her.

      "And where are you staying? How did you drift down here?"

      "At Mrs. Grant's—for the present." What might have been indignation warmed the words.

      "Grandmother, you must be tired," said Electra affectionately. "Let me go to your room with you, and see you settled."

      "Nonsense!" said the old lady briskly. "Nonsense! I'm going, but I don't need any help. Good-by, Miss MacLeod. I shall want to see you again when I have a head on my shoulders."

      She had gone, and still Electra made no sign of bidding her guest sit down again. Instead, she turned to Rose with an engaging courtesy.

      "You will excuse me, won't you? I ought to go to grandmother. She is far from strong."

      Rose answered quickly,—

      "Forgive me! I will go. But"—she had reached the door, and paused there entreatingly—"when may I see you again?"

      "Grandmother's coming will keep me rather busy," said Electra, in her brilliant manner. "But I shall take great pleasure in returning your visit. Good-by."

      Rose, walking fast, was out upon the road again, blind to everything save anger, against herself, against the world. She had come to America upon an impulse, a daring one, sure that here were friendliness and safety such as she had never known. She had found a hostile camp, and every fibre in her thrilled in savage misery. Half way along the distance home Peter came eagerly forward to her from the roadside where he had been kicking his heels and fuming. The visit to Osmond had not been made. At the plantation gate he had turned back, unable to curb his desire to know what had gone on between these two. At once he read the signs of her distress, the angry red in her cheeks, the dilated eye. Even her nostrils seemed to breathe defiance or hurt pride. She spoke with unconsidered bitterness.

      "I ought never to have come."

      "What was it? Tell me."

      "It was nothing. I was received as an ordinary caller. That was all."

      "Who received you?"

      "She. Electra."

      "What then?"

      "I was presented to her grandmother as my father's daughter, not as her brother's—wife." She was breathless upon the word. All the color went out of her face. She looked faint and wan.

      "But it couldn't be," he was repeating. "Didn't you speak of Tom at all?"

      "No."

      "Didn't she?"

      "No."

      He essayed a bald and unreasonable comfort.

      "There, you see! You didn't mention him, and Electra hardly brings herself to do it to any one. He never ceased being a trial to her. You must let me say that."

      "Ah, that wasn't it! Every time I might have spoken, a hand, a clever, skillful hand and cold as ice pushed me away. I can never speak of it. She won't let me."

      He was with her, every impulse of his eager heart; but a tardy conscience pulled him up, bidding him remember that other loyalty.

      "Give her time," he pleaded. "It's a shock to her. Perhaps it ought not to be; but it is. Everything about Tom has always been a shock."

      She, as well as he, remembered now that they spoke of Electra, whose high-bred virtues he had extolled to her in those still evenings on their voyage, when her courage failed her and he had opened to her the book of Electra's truth and justice.

      "Do you think," she said wistfully, "I might stay at your grandmother's a few days more?"

      "You are to stay forever. Grannie dotes upon you."

      "No! no! But I shall have to think. I shall have to make my plans."

      Again Peter felt yesterday's brand of anger against his imperial lady, or, he told himself immediately, the unfortunate circumstances of this misunderstanding. "You run on," he said. "Grannie's where you left her. If you don't feel like talking you can skip in at that little gate and the side door up to your room. I'm going back to see Electra."

      "You mustn't talk about me!"

      "No!" He smiled at her in a specious reassurance, and went striding on over the path by which she had come.

      Electra, in the fulfillment of her intention, had gone scrupulously to her grandmother's door, to ask if she needed anything, and then, when she had been denied, returned to the library, where she stood when Peter appeared on the threshold, as if she had been expecting him. He did not allow his good impulse to cool, but hurried forward to her with an abounding interest and a certainty of finding it fulfilled. As at first, when he had come to her in the garden the day before, he uttered her name eloquently, and broke out upon the heels of it,—

      "I didn't see you all yesterday, after that first minute."

      Electra looked at him seriously, СКАЧАТЬ